Tala
History Tala: 860 - Present Tala was born to a holistic priestess in the wilds of untamed Ireland. She was still only an unnamed baby when she was taken from her homeland and mother's breast through violence. Crying and confused, she was made a slave and sent by boat on the lap of a strange girl barely older than herself to help settle Iceland. Given the name Tala by assignment rather than affection, she worked mostly in kitchens as a scullery maid for the local jarl's senior skald. It was in this capacity that she came to the attention of the sorcerer later known as Felix Faust. Felix had been in the far north searching for a mystical relic but when that turned out to be a dead end, he took another souvenir with him: Tala. Faust had sensed the slave girl's magical potential and while on the seas back to his library, he told Tala that he intended to make her his apprentice. The remainder of Tala's childhood was spent in agonizing mystical induction and partaking in grueling rituals where she played little more part than a battery so that Felix himself had no need to strain his own mystical reserves. For the first few years after reaching adulthood, Tala was still more thrall than apprentice. Whatever instruction she was given was only what she needed to know to play some small part in Felix's plans. It was not until she was in her twenty-sixth life that she began on the path to becoming a proper sorceress, but only because Felix needed a sorcerer other than himself to do what he had planned next: binding a demon's power to his own soul. Something went wrong. No one can say whether it was an issue with Faust's warding incantations on the summoning circle, Tala's limited mystical instruction, or their captive demon's own machinations upon realizing the purpose behind its summoning. What can be said is that the demon's power was absorbed by Tala herself rather than Faust. For a sorceress as young as she was, this should have killed her, but such is the testament to her natural gift for magic that she survived, though as is the case with magic, there is often a price to be paid. Tala was catatonic for twenty years, in a mystical torpor from which nothing seemed able to disturb her. When she awoke, she was hungry, thirsty, tired, and alone in Felix's abandoned library. She managed to navigate the dark depths of the lair and venture out into civilization where she sought out nutrients and information on what had happened as she slept. She learned that Faust was likely to return, though it could be years or even decades from then. Not having any other plans, she chose to take up residency in the library, teaching herself through dedicated study and ample trial and error. It became much easier once she learned to harness the infernal power inside herself and summoned hellish imps to help with her menial tasks of cleaning, cooking, and the like. By the time Faust had returned from his travels with a few meager relics and scribbled down duplication from a dozen different magical tomes, he found Tala had made herself quite at home and had even taken on a few apprentices of her own. Though by then Tala recognized that she had already surpassed Felix in power, she knew she still had much to learn of ways and world of magic, its social circles, and the lore; so she spent years inflating Felix's ego, making him look good in front of the apprentices Tala had amassed for him, and sharing his bed. But Tala got greedy and may have tipped her hand a time or two. Felix may have been a fool in many regards, but he was no idiot. Tala underestimated him and he tricked her into reciting an incantation near one of his many relics. With Tala waking the Vanishing Glass with her magical wording, she was pulled into the mystic mirror on the wall of Faust's private study. There she would spend several centuries, usually in solitude. When Faust was not travelling, he would often gloat of his victory over her, but eventually Felix took on a new apprentice and Tala was able to trick the young man into taking her place so that she might ambush Faust. While she had planned to kill Faust, Felix instead shouted the incantation of the mirror just as Tala swung down with her blade. Faust imprisoned himself in the mirror and let his unfortunate pupil take the blow from Tala. These shenanigans persisted for a century or two, each one finding some way to trick the other into invoking the mirror's magic until finally Faust offered a truce in the form of a magically-enforced marriage geas. Tala agreed to undergo the geas, even if it required marrying the mentor that she had come to despise. When their marriage was consummated, the two went their separate ways for centuries. Tala would utilized the geas trick with other partners many more times over the years as a means to achieve even greater power or forbidden knowledge. These were usually not bothersome to her as she had little intent to ever deal with these husbands of hers again, yet she did have a couple husbands she never seemed able to shake. Felix Faust and Tala would cross one another's path again. Sometimes as allies in need of a favor and other times as rivals each in pursuit of the same relic or with competing interests in another matter. More than either cared to admit, they found themselves lovers once more but these sorts of things were rarely planned. Early into 1983, however, Tala and Felix did plan a rendezvous to celebrate an event which they had discovered would come to pass many centuries ago. In the early morning hours of that day, the two took part in a magical ritual which tapped into the potent cosmic energies at play that morning and fueled their own magical potencies which were intended to be passed to the child which would soon form inside Tala. Many months after this ritual had been undertaken, Tala brought Felix his son, exchanging the child for a black diamond, as per the terms of their arrangement. Before she left, she made sure to give her son a kiss and tell him to be a rotten brat for Felix's mortal wife Julia. Since then, Tala has apparently been a frequent sight at the Oblivion Bar, though no one can be quite certain what she has been up to. Those who are likely to know are unable to tell their wife's secrets.Deluxe Oracle File: Tala Threat Assessment Missing Data Trivia and Notes Notes * Being Felix Faust's apprentice and lover, and the imprisonment in a mirror, are nods to the Justice League Unlimited animated series. Links and References * Appearances of Tala * Character Gallery: Tala Category:Characters Category:Homo Magi Category:Villains Category:Immortality Category:Magic Category:Pansexual Characters Category:White Eyes Category:Red Hair Category:Widowed Characters Category:Irish Category:Magicians Category:Female Characters Category:Tattoos Category:Height 5' 11" Category:27th Reality